The 9 P.M. Walks

9 P.M. has become a special hour for Jacob and I within the past few days.

It all started when, after an evening of lazing around, I bugged Jacob until he agreed to go on a walk with me. We left the house right before 9 p.m, just as it was beginning to get dark outside.

We turned the corner out of the tree coverage and onto the street, where the view opens up to fields on either side and the road leads up a hill. And then we flipped out.

The sky looked like it was swallowed in fire. We had never seen a sunset that saturated the sky so vibrantly with neon oranges and pinks. We kept walking up the road, getting more and more excited the more we saw of the sunset. Finally we took off running, trying to get to the top of the hill before the sunset was gone.

It was breathtaking. This is what we saw:

The picture is poor quality and taken on a cellphone - and of course you know pictures of sunsets never come close to their real-life splendor. But it still gives you some idea of how spectacular this sunset was: incredible enough to make us run.

The next evening we ventured out at 9 P.M. again, hoping we would find another sunset like the night before. Opting out of running, we took the bikes up the hill, and did not find a sunset.

We found this:

Evening fog was rolling in over the fields, making wispy designs and patterns in the air as it flowed between trees and settled over the grass. Jacob even saw three deer leaping through the fog. We stayed until it was almost completely dark, then rode our bikes back home.

And just for good measure, here is another picture from a recent trip to our favorite lake on a stormy hot day.

It seems like everywhere here is the "scenic route". We've just been rolling in the natural splendor, and it never gets old.